'Disk Boot Failure'

[king_panther]

have you tried installing windows on one of the drives, then moving the drive to another PC to see if the same issue exists or not?

No. Haven't tried that. Though I've tried drives that were working in POS terminals that I have at home, then put them in this computer, & then they won't boot after loading the OS.
I'll just wait for the motherboard to arrive, then swap it & see. As the family computer tech, I've got other computers to look at now...

 

[king_panther]

To tie this thread up, manage to grab an identical motherboard off EBay for $40. A slight incident ensued where I screwed the pins of the CPU as I removed it from the dud board.
So another $70 later with a new CPU & thermal paste, we have a working computer again! Though, for some reason, with the slave 160gig drive plugged in, the computer won't boot past the second POST screen. Unplug it, & it's fine.
Hmmm...

 

[hozza]

In the Bios you will have to change where it boots from.
When its plugged in it will be trying to boot from you slave not master.

 

[king_panther]

In the Bios you will have to change where it boots from.
When its plugged in it will be trying to boot from you slave not master.

Nope it's not that. BIOS picks up the drives fine, & the master/slave designations are correct, but when it goes to boot up, it gets to the second screen (where it displays the system information, & just stops.
I've tried just having the 160gig drive in there as a master, & the system is almost unusable as it runs so slowly, so my feeling is there could be something odd with the drive. My home PC still uses PATA for drive connections, so I'll try it in there.

 

[king_panther]

OK end result, the 2 hard drives were VERY temperamental according where they were plugged in on the IDE ribbon cable. With some internal rewiring, I've managed to get everything going again!

So after 1 dodgy motherboard, & 1 buggered CPU, we are back to a fully working computer!